


you and I would end up together

by neyvenger (jjjat3am)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Character Study, M/M, not really a romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 04:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5992048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/pseuds/neyvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alvaro Negredo and Gary Neville, and an unlikely friendship.</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Redemption doesn't always go hand in hand with triumph.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you and I would end up together

**Author's Note:**

> After the game against Depor, Gary waited for Alvaro walk by with the biggest grin on his face and then cupped his face in his hands as he said something to him and it was all really freaking sweet. I've been thinking about it ever since.

_ i. _

  
  


_ Alvaro dreams a lot these days.  _

  
  


_ About a blinding white jersey on his back, the white softening into crisp lines of his name and number. In his dreams he stands on the pitch on the green welcoming grass and looks up at the stands filled with white. He’s never on the bench and the Bernabéu howls his name in jubilant welcome. _

  
  


_ He always wakes up. And for a brief moment he doesn’t know where he is anymore. In Sevilla or in Manchester, or maybe in Madrid, watching the Vallecas sleep through his window, drowning in the long invisible shadow of the Bernabéu. _

  
  


_ But then a muscle twitches in his leg and his body’s suddenly pinned down with the full force of his age, and he remembers; he’s in Valencia, where he’s come to lay his dreams to rest. _

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


The grass on the training field is freshly mowed and his cleats fall firm where he walks. He exchanges some nods with his teammates, watches their gazes scatter with a familiar kind of hopeless resignation. Alvaro doesn’t have many friends these days. Not in Valencia.

  
  


He’d been mad about it at first; all he’d said was what they were all thinking, so why was he watching their backs turn away?

  
  


Then he watched team sheet after team sheet come out without his name on it and he’d understood.

  
  


But Nuno is gone now and the boys are buzzing with news about the new Mister. There’s all sorts of strikes against him; he’s got no experience, doesn’t know the language and doesn’t know the league. Only Parejo seems excited, but then again he’s always been a Manchester United fan.

  
  


Alvaro keeps quiet, stretches out his hamstrings. His legs hurt again. That’s not unusual. Unbidden, an image rises in his mind’s eye; of rain, always the rain, turning the ground into a trap and hitting his skin like miniature arrows, cold giving way to numbness. He shakes his head to get rid of it. He suddenly feels cold, even though it’s a warm day in Valencia.

  
  


As one, the other players lapse into silence and Alvaro looks up, straightens. The group of technical staff comes closer, engaged in vigorous discussion, centered around a dark clad figure that seems to be racing to leave them behind, his stride quick and his voice piercingly loud as he barks instructions to a translator that looks increasingly out of breath.

  
  


The only one who seems to be keeping up fairly easily is assistant coach Neville, though presumably it’s because he must be used to it. Alvaro likes him, though it’s amusing that Phil doesn’t seem to have realized that Alvaro speaks perfectly passable English.

  
  


The group comes to a stop. Gary Neville straightens the lapels of his suit before stepping forward. His eyes are dark and liquid, shining with a spark of mania. Alvaro approves tiredly. All his best coaches have been some sort of crazy. 

 

There are bags under his eyes, like he’d flown straight off a plane and into planning, no time to sleep in between. 

  
  


Alvaro wonders, idly, if he’s had time to practice his Spanish.

  
  


He hasn’t, it turns out. The introduction is slow, as everything needs to be painstakingly translated. The words are good though, strong and full of conviction. There’s less distrust on everyone’s faces after Neville finishes speaking, or maybe it’s just better hidden.

  
  


Alvaro can’t tell these days. He starts running when instructed and keeps his head down. The less attention he gets from the new coach, the better. His focus turns to the grass and the ball, stifling the instinctive fear in his chest.

  
  


_ ii. _

  
  


_ It didn’t use to be like this. There was a time where his sleep was dreamless, when genius shot like gold lines through his bones, and when he prowled in front of goal like a beast, screaming and snarling and fighting for the ball to stray to his feet. _

  
  


_ He wanted the ball, was hungry for it. He was never afraid back then. Not of anyone, least of all himself. _

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


It turns out the new Mister is sharper than expected. It doesn’t take him long to figure out that Alvaro is interpreting his English commands and passing them onto everyone else. 

  
  


Some obey and some don’t.

  
  


He gets called up to the manager’s office after the third training session. It shouldn’t be as scary as it is.

  
  


In general, Neville seems to be cut from the same cloth as most good old English managers. Namely, he shouts for more than half of training and then shouts some more during the training matches. He’s very good at the shouting part, has even learned some Spanish words for the occasion, even though Alvaro suspects that half of them are English with just an  -o tacked at the end. He’s full of barely caged energy, bouncing on the balls of his feet when he’s forced to sit still, always in motion, always preoccupied with a few things at once. Dizzying.

  
  


Alvaro’s got no doubt that he’s brilliant though. That comes through sometimes, when he’s directing them and even more when Alvaro watches his press conferences in the evening, curled up with his dinner on the couch, with the translator interpreting the harsh Mancunian into comfortable Spanish.

  
  


Neville’s authoritative too, like most great defenders are, his voice pitched to carry, to obey. But he’s inexperienced, and it shows to Alvaro who’s been directed by many a great manager. His plans are based in theory, not in the players’ tired feet, in the potential he sees in them and not their reality. He wonders how long it’ll take the others to notice.

  
  


He’ll keep quiet about it and his head down. Some lessons you only need to learn once.

  
  


Alvaro walks past a harried looking secretary with a nod and a wave, and knocks once, on the dark oak door. There’s silence and then a hurried voice calling for him to enter. The door closes behind him with a click.

  
  


The office is a chaos of papers and diagrams and chewed up pencils strewn on every surface, and in it all, the manager sits like a king on his throne, scribbling furiously on a piece of paper, while assistant coach Neville looks on helplessly at the mess, looking just as harried as the secretary, if not more.

  
  


“Oh, hello,” he says to Alvaro, then turns to his older brother, who’s not yet acknowledged either of them. “Shall I call you the translator, Gary?”

  
  


“Hm, what?” Gary Neville looks up from his papers and offers Alvaro a short nod. “No, that won’t be necessary, Phil.”

  
  


“But you don’t speak Spanish!”

  
  


“And he speaks at least some English. Don’t tell me you didn’t know?” the manager says, and sighs when it becomes apparent that Phil hadn’t. “You played in Manchester.” That one is addressed to Alvaro and he nods, straightens so his back is almost painfully tense.

  
  


“Yes, sir,” he says, carefully holding onto the vowels. “For City,” he adds, when it becomes apparent that no one else will speak.

  
  


“Yes, of course for City. If it were United, Phil would probably know you,” Gary Neville snaps and Alvaro guiltily avoids the Phil’s wounded look. He resolves to make it up to him afterwards, somehow. He really is very nice, if a bit awkward sometimes.

  
  


“Take these and get some rest, Phil,” Neville says, handing him the papers, and his expression softens just the tiniest amount, “say hi to the missus for me, kiss the kids. I’ll probably be late.”

  
  


“You’re always home late,” Phil says, sighing, “I know Tracey said she barely sees you, but I’m telling her that seeing you all the time is worse.”

  
  


“I warned you,” Neville says and smiles. It’s remarkable how the expression transforms his face into something softer and more approachable. Alvaro drops his gaze quickly, so he won’t be caught staring.

  
  


Then Phil leaves with a soft click of the door behind him and Alvaro is left alone with Neville. Somewhat wildly, he thinks that his contract must be among these papers somewhere. Maybe he’s here to be laid off.

  
  


He looks up, only to be confronted with the full force of Neville’s attention. It’s disconnecting; before, there’s always been a buffer between them, another player or a staff member. He tries to keep himself as still as possible, feeling rather like prey confronted with a large predator.

  
  


It’s Neville who breaks the silence.

  
  


“Alvaro...can I call you Alvaro?” he says, continuing after Alvaro’s startled nod. “Give it to me straight, how am I doing?”

  
  


Alvaro blinks at him, at the expectant expression on his face, at the the unexpected earnestness in his voice.

  
  


“I think...good, sir,” he answers, carefully, swallowing dryly when the intense focus doesn’t let up.

  
  


“And the other players? What do they think?” 

  
  


‘I don’t know,’ he wants to say, ‘they don’t really speak to me.’ Instead he says, “I think they’re convinced, sir. For now.”

  
  


“Won’t convince them without results, I suppose,” Neville says, mostly to himself. His gaze is finally off Alvaro, set somewhere out the window of his office. Alvaro wonders what he’s looking at. Now that those intense eyes are off him, he finds that he almost misses it, misses the attention.

  
  


“That’s usually the way it goes, sir,” he says, and that gaze snaps back to him as if its owner were woken up from a daydream.

  
  


“None of that ‘sir’ nonsense,” Neville says, pulling out a stack of papers full of diagrams from the pile, “call me Gary. Now get over here, you’re the only one I can talk to properly. This is how you’re going to play…”

  
  


Alvaro shuffles over to the desk on wobbly knees and listens to the explanation, watching Gary’s fingers fly over the crumpled papers, drawing shapes and figures and tactical statistics. He only understands about a third of what he hears, can’t hear it over the roaring of his blood in his ears.

  
  


_ You’re going to play _

  
  


The words rattle around his skull, diffuse into his bones with a familiar kind of frisson, drawing his muscles tight. 

  
  


_ You’re going to play _

  
  


He’s going to play.

  
  
  
  


_ iii. _

  
  
  


_ After Madrid he’d gone to Sevilla, with its color and vibrance and light. Sevilla was nice. Sevilla had been Jesús, with his precise perfect passes that always seemed to land exactly where Alvaro needed them to land. And Jesús with his passes and his green eyes had fit perfectly in his arms as they celebrated, leaning into his side after Alvaro had said something stupid just to make him laugh. _

  
  


_ Then, Jesús left, and Alvaro followed, because he’d grown spoiled with his passes and used to his laugh. _

  
  


_ Manchester was cold and rainy and colorless, except for the blue that was like the clearest sky in summer.  _

  
  


_ The football was different there; faster, rougher. Everyone was hungry here, starving, it seemed. Defenders clawed at his arms, at his feet, tearing at his body. Maybe they thought the Spaniards were soft. Alvaro had been many things, but never soft. He set out to teach them that lesson. _

  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  


He finds himself visiting Gary’s office more often after that. Gary’s made it clear that he’s welcome and that he works better by articulating his thoughts out to someone anyway. Unwittingly, with his slow grasp on English, Alvaro becomes that someone. 

  
  


Sometimes, he even manages to follow Gary’s thoughts long enough that he can ask an intelligent question. The pleased look he gets in return causes a frisson of warmth in his stomach, and he tries not to think about that too deeply.

  
  


“You know, you speak English with a Mancunian accent,” Gary says, and his tone is weird, distant, almost like he wanted it to be something else.

  
  


Alvaro, who’s always hopelessly swallowing his vowels, shrugs and offers a weak  _ “madferit” _ that makes Gary laugh anyway.

  
  


Phil gets so used to seeing him in Gary’s office that he hardly warrants a surprised glance anymore.

  
  


But sometimes when Alvaro comes in, it’s to Gary on the phone with someone. His voice is agitated, accent thickened with a flurry of insults Alvaro can’t even decipher, but his face is open, soft with uncharacteristic emotion. On those days, Alvaro excuses himself quietly, closing the door behind him with a firm click, somehow knowing instinctively that he isn’t needed.

  
  


The thing is, the more he listens to Gary talk, the more his passion starts filtering into Alvaro’s tired bloodstream, pumping and pushing for him to live, to run forward, to fight. Under Gary’s intense manic gaze he becomes less of something unwanted, and more of what he used to be.

  
  


It’s as heady as it is frightening, because Alvaro has grown used to his tired feet, to his aching bones, to the jawing, aching pit of longing in the base of his stomach. He worries what he’ll see in Gary’s eyes when he’s inevitably proven wrong.

  
  
  
  


_ iv. _

  
  
  


_ His contract ran out with City and he went home. Or a few degrees east at least, to Valencia. Jesús had leaned into his side, as young and as bright as ever, and Alvaro couldn’t help but resent him for it.  _

  
  


_ “Call me when you land,” he’d said and then walked on, to training, like nothing had changed.  _

  
  


_ Alvaro hadn’t called. _

  
  


_ The truth was that he was tired. The shining core of him had rubbed off during the tackles and the fights, leaving dull metal where gold had once shined. He’d never had much pace to speak of, but it didn’t used to matter, if he could get himself in the right place at the right time, if his foot never missed, if he could jump higher than the defender. _

  
  


_ The problem was, he couldn’t anymore. He played infrequently, or not at all, after a frustrated comment to a too-zealous reporter. _

  
  


_ And he knows that people regard Gary’s faith in him with suspicion. If he were them, he’d be suspicious too. _

  
  


_ The ball landed at his feet in Gijon and he was so sure of the strike, so confident when the boot hit the leather, only for it to curl wide, impossibly wide. _

  
  


_ Then came the Bernabéu, bringing a familiar fire to his veins, the urge to prove himself (because maybe they’ll want him then, maybe they’ll take him back). _

  
  


_ But again. The ball. The miss. And the white sea in the stands jeering, impossibly indifferent. _

  
  


_ He kept his head down, his gaze on his cleats and determinately didn’t look at the bench.  _

  
  


_ They keep losing. _

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


They should be winning against Deportivo. There’s no going around it that Valencia should be able to beat Deportivo away, no matter how bad their form. And yet they’re not, struggling to come back from a one goal lead deeply into extra time. Alvaro can see the Depor fans already celebrating from the corner of his eye. His body still feels heavy from the chance he missed a few minutes before.

  
  


Then, a stroke of brilliance. A pass into the box, the crowd of bodies, and it isn’t a pretty goal. But it’s Alvaro’s, the ball hitting his head and redirecting into the net. And then his teammates mob him in a hug, and they’re all celebrating a draw against Deportivo, but it doesn’t seem to matter either way, because it means they can breathe for another week.

  
  


The referee blows his whistle a minute later, and Alvaro shakes hands absentmindedly, walking towards the benches. Gary’s already waiting, and there’s dark shadows under his eyes that’d grown permanent lately, but when he sees Alvaro, his expression clears into a smile. Alvaro walks forward into his widespread greeting arms, smiling as Gary’s hands cup his cheeks, cool and dry against his sweaty skin.

  
  


“Well done,” Gary says, pulls him further into a hug, whispers, “you saved me,” into his hair. 

  
  
  


And Alvaro isn’t sure it’s the truth, thinks it might be the other way round instead, but he doesn’t say it, buries his head further into the soft sweater.

  
  


That’s in January, and there’s still hope, however slim. And then comes Barcelona.

  
  


There can be no hope against this Barcelona, no saviors in the face of its brutal unstoppable brilliance. The goals fall like hailstones, and Alvaro stops watching the game, focuses on Gary instead, the defeated line of his shoulders, the way he watches, helpless and tired. 

  
  


He collapses into his seat, halfway through the second half, and Alvaro wants to put a hand on his shoulder but he doesn’t think it’ll be welcome, presses it to the back of Gary’s seat instead, feeling cold plastic in place of cloth and skin.

  
  


It’s better to watch him than to think of himself, once again watching from the bench as others lose his battles for him. 

  
  


He gets up after the whistle blows, feeling sick, watching his teammates trickle by, wide-eyed and shaky. He goes into the tunnel with the vague instinct to find Gary, though he doesn’t know what good it’ll do. 

  
  


Alvaro catches sight of him in one of the side tunnels, standing with a tall man he’s never seen before. They’re whispering to each other furiously, but he watches Gary enough to see that his hips are canted ever so slightly towards the other man, their heads bent close. When the man puts his hand on Gary’s back, he doesn’t flinch away from it.

  
  


Piatti brushes up against him as he walks past and Alvaro blinks awake, realizes he’s been staring. He turns instead to watch Piatti’s retreating back. The other man is trembling, almost violently, his fists clenched. Before he knows it, Alvaro closes the distance between them to throw an arm over Piatti’s shoulder, pulling him into his side. He’s small underneath his palms, his bones impossibly thin and fragile.

  
  


After a moment of indecision, Piatti relaxes and they walk like that the rest of the way, into the dressing room that’s as silent and somber as a tomb.

  
  
  
  


_ v. _

  
  
  


_ There’s a story in this, about opportunity and expectation, and never living up to it. Or maybe it’s about finding hope in other people and redemption in the belief they place in you. _

  
  


_ But Alvaro’s never been been much of a fan of stories, unless they were written with a ball and 22 pairs of feet. The only words he really knows are in the curve the ball makes when it arches into goal.  _

  
  


_ And now, the ball is at his feet, where it belongs, and two Espanyol defenders already behind him. The green stretches in front of him like a fairytale, the open goal towering above him like a last paragraph. _

  
  


_ He doesn’t think of Gary on the bench when his boot connects with leather one last time, and he doesn’t think of him when it swishes into the back of the net, and there are bodies crowding around him.  _

  
  


_ But Alvaro looks for him after, when he’s jogging back into position, ready for another play. He looks for a small dark figure on the sidelines and offers a thumbs up. _

  
  


_**‘You saved me’** he wants to say, but the ball is already in motion, always in motion until his feet grow too tired to follow it. _

  
  


_ If this is all a dream, he prays he never wakes up. _

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Notes on the fic:  
> \- Alvaro started playing professionally for Rayo Vallecano, then continued his career with Almeria (where he played with Pablo Piatti), and was then bought by Real Madrid in 2009, though he never played for them, and was instead loaned to Sevilla immediately (where he played with Jesus Navas). He moved on to Manchester City in 2013, right after Jesus signed with them. He was loaned to Valencia in 2014, with the notion that he hadn't fulfilled the expectations placed on him.  
> \- He criticized former Valencia manager Nuno in the press and was subsequently benched until Gary Neville took over the club. Everyone was a little surprised that Gary chose to put his faith in him instead.  
> \- Alvaro used to be known as La fiera de Vallecas (The beast of Vallecas) when he was younger, presumably because he was big and played very physically.  
> \- Pablo Piatti is 160 cm tall which is 20 cm smaller than Alvaro.  
> \- I don't know how much English Alvaro actually speaks. Call it creative licence.  
> \- Alvaro scored the equalizer in the game against Deportivo, two minutes into extra time. Gary was very happy with him.  
> \- FC Barcelona beat Valencia 7:0 in the Copa del Rey on February 3rd, 2016. It was one of the biggest defeats the club had suffered since its beginning. Alvaro was on the bench.  
> \- Jamie Carragher was in the crowd at the Camp Nou that night and witnessed Gary's defeat. I'm not saying that he sneaked down to the tunnel to comfort him, but that's exactly what I'm saying.  
> \- The game against Espanyol is played today, on February 13th and it'll determine whether or not Valencia will be in the relegation zone for the first time in over 50 years. Let's hope I have some foresight.


End file.
